Training school break

We're now half-way through the Spring Term at the training school. My second term.

The highlight of the past few weeks was beginning to learn how to put the hands-on. I'm happy to say that by the time we began doing it, the idea of putting hands on was no longer such a big deal - I was confident.

I suppose what helped me most to make this transition, was to remember that it's all about me working on myself!

It's good to have a week of break from the training. Time to let the work go and allow it to sink in and be assimilated.

Ladies and Gentlemen: the main breathing muscle

So, what is this main breathing muscle? It's a diaphragm.

However, breathing is also the whole body business, so in a way, every muscle of our bodies is a breathing muscle. If in doubt, do one of the following things and observe what happens to your breathing:

Grip the floor with your feet...  clench your jaw ... or just stare.

Got it?

It's also fascinating how unlocking relatively small tension (in the ankles, for example) can free up our body. The body is working as a whole unit!

Here are 2 interesting videos of the diaphragm at work:

 Jessica Wolf's Art of Breathing - visit the site to view the video...

Breathing

The Theme at our training school this term is "Breathing".

If I had to point out the weakest aspect of my use, it has always been breathing. So when this Theme was announced I was both excited, but also apprehensive, as I anticipated that this was going to be challenging...

However, it wasn't. Quite quickly I made a reasonable choice not to try to sort out my breathing this term, instead the aim is to get a better understanding of its mechanics, and particularly how I interfere with breathing.

What are the most common patterns of interference? How come, and how do we work with them?

Somehow I managed to get rid of the 'big fuss' factor from the awareness of my breathing, I stopped to try to improve it, or fix it, or at least intellectually I understand that I can't sort my breathing out directly. However, in practice it's not always that easy to step back, to stop interfering. Well, how about having a trust in the process of working with the principles?

In 2 weeks time I'll have to offer a talk on this Theme, so since some thoughts and observation already began to stream in, I'm going to share some of them here ...

Back, again!...

And here we go again, exactly one month after completing using this website... I begin again!

I'm now almost half-way through the second term of my AT training. It's going well - I'm really into it.

I'd like to use this blog as a means of clarifying my understanding of the AT by writing about it. I'll see how it develops...

For now, it's 23.23 here in Catford, London. Time to get ready for bed, but first I think I'm going to have a constructive rest.